Hi Wayne
The plovers aren't too discerning about substrate. At Floras Lake and
New River south the beach is very gravelly, and they will happily nest
in it. As Russ mentioned, plovers have nested on gravel bars in the
Eel River in Humboldt Cty. This is a unique habitat with very large
gravel, compared to Floras Lake/New River. What tends to be more
important to them is the open habitat. They will gladly nest on salt
flats, sandy beaches, gravel bars, and in shell hash. It is far more
important to be open and have a good line of sight.
Cheers
Dave Lauten
On 9/6/2018 8:36 AM, Wayne Hoffman wrote:
Hi, Dave -
The Gold Beach nesting is particularly interesting, as the sand on the beaches I am familiar with there is much coarser than anywhere I know of as plover habitat. Do they nest on such coarse sand on the California coast?
Wayne
On 9/6/2018 8:22:57 AM, DJ Lauten and KACastelein <deweysage@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi folks,
Dave mentioned how far and fast these plovers disperse. Well, a couple of points - Snowies will and do disperse in both north and south directions. Some birds winter further north than the breed. But to put the dispersal into perspective, I have reports of juvenile plovers from this year currently in Guadalupe -Nipomo NWR (this would be central California coast) and Camp Pendelton and Coronado Naval Base both in the San Diego area. No small jump!
Also we had a record number of plovers attempting or successfully nesting at a number of locations in Oregon outside of the core nesting area (which is Florence to Floras Lake). These include:
* *Clatsop Spit/Ft. Stevens* 1 nest
* *Nehalem*
* *Bayocean Spit *- 1 nest
* *Sitka Sedge* - 1 nest
* *Newport Area: *
o *Agate Beach* - brood reported
o *South Beach SP* - at least 3 nests one that fledged 2 chicks
* *Waldport area*: multiple nests
o *Quail St to Alsea mouth (incl Driftwood Shore SP)*
o *South Alsea to Patterson SP*
* *Elk River* - 1 nest successfully fledged
* *Gold Beach *1 nest; this location is extremely interesting as it
was not an expected location and it is to our knowledge was not a
known plover nesting beach historically and a very rare Curry cty
nest outside of Floras Lake.
There may be more than this, but at a minimum this is what I know at the moment.
Please do report any band combos you may see, and best yet try to get some pictures as it can be tricky to accurately report color bands and combinations.
Thanks Dave, and everyone else who cares and has interest. These are Oregon birds, and we are one of the few populations that has been very successful at recovery efforts, and we should all be proud of our Oregon Plovers. They are very special birds, and really a joy to work with.
Big Kudos goes out to all the agencies and people involved in the recovery effort including our current team Daniel Farrar, Adam Kotaich, Erica Krygsman, and Eleanor Gaines (Oregon Biodiversity Information Center): Laura Todd at USFWS and all the folks at FWS; Vanessa Blackstone at OPRD who has worked tirelessly along the north coast to get the plovers back breeding there - and all the other folks at OPRD who deal with myriad and often difficult recreation issues; Cindy Burns at USFS Dunes Rec Area and all the staff that works with her - the Dunes Rec area is really the CORE of the plover breeding range in Oregon; all the great folks at BLM Coos Bay (too many to name!!) whose support thru the years has been unwavering; Army Corp of Engineers who partly own the most important nesting site north of Monterrey Bay (Coos Bay North Spit) and also are instrumental at Clatsop Spit; ODFW (Charlie Bruce retired and Martin Nugent and Stu Love to name a few); and importantly Wildlife Services - all the guys who have worked for Paul Wolf and Mike Burrell - without these guys and the difficult work they do, there would not be this many plovers.
cheers
Dave Lauten and Kathy Castelein
On 9/5/2018 11:05 PM, David Irons wrote:
Greetings All,
This past weekend Shawneen and I found three Snowy Plovers on the open beach on Nehalem Spit. We walked the entire spit from the parking lot at the end of the road through Nehalem Bay State Park all the way to the north jetty of Nehalem Bay. The plovers were about half way down the beach maybe a mile to a mile and a quarter south from the trail between the parking area and the beach.
Over recent months I have sent photographs of banded Snowy Plovers–first from Clatsop County and now from Tillamook County–to Dave Lauten who keeps track of all the band combinations used on birds hatched along the Oregon coast. Although potential Snowy Plover nesting areas have been signed off and closed in Tillamook and Clatsop Counties, all of the banded birds that I've photographed thus far in northern coastal counties have originated from nesting sites in Coos and Douglas Counties, where Dave, Kathy Castelein, Daniel Farrar and others have been monitoring and helping manage and protect Oregon's fragile coastal breeding population for about twenty years or so.
Interestingly, all three birds that we found on Nehalem Spit this past Sunday were juveniles that fledged this summer. Two wore color bands revealing that they came from Douglas and Coos County nesting sites. The third had no band, so where it hatched is unknown. It's interesting that birds hatched in either Coos or Douglas County would so quickly disperse north more than 150 miles. I heard through the grapevine that there was an active nest along the river beach north of the south jetty of the Columbia this summer, but I don't know if any young fledged.
I would encourage anyone who encounters banded Snowy Plovers on northern Oregon beaches to get photos and send them to Dave Lauten (deweysage@xxxxxxxxxxxx). Dave always responds promptly, usually with the nesting location and date when each bird was banded. It is wonderful–and a testament to the hard work of many people (particularly those mentioned above)–that we have these birds regularly occurring in Oregon's northern coastal counties again. Over the past three decades or so Snowy Plovers have been mostly absent or at least very difficult to find in Clatsop, Tillamook, and Lincoln Counties.
The attached photo was taken on Nehalem Spit on 2 September 2018.
Dave Irons
Beaverton, OR
